


Shoreline

by amelia



Series: A Torchwood Almanac [4]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: Aliens, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Paralysis, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-29
Updated: 2012-07-31
Packaged: 2017-11-10 23:10:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/471751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amelia/pseuds/amelia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ianto and Jack take a day's holiday to the seashore, but trouble finds them--and his name is the Doctor.  (Jack/Ianto, Jack/10)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is Part 1 of 3. After the Year that Never Was, the Doctor seems to keep appearing at random in Jack's life in Cardiff (in my little story world anyway).

Gulls flew low over Cardiff, streaking by the apartment buildings as Jack looked up, searching for Ianto's window. A soft rain was falling, pattering in small puddles on the asphalt. The rain muted the birds' calls and other sounds around him, but he recognized the footfalls of soft trainers. 

Converse. The Doctor was watching him, but Jack couldn't see where he was hiding. He looked up again, but Ianto's light was off in the apartment, and he couldn't find the front door to his building.

\-------

The Doctor moved quietly around Jack, scanning him with his sonic, and checking his life signs. Neurological activity was present, but he was still unconscious and running a fever. Brushing a hand across Jack's arm, the Doctor saw his coloration was nearly normal again, though his lips were still pale and grey. 

Effectively he'd suffered an injection of 100 mL of Berini poison in his spinal column. The creature had stung him instinctively, then flown up toward the sky again--hopefully finding his way back to space and its swarm. Its poison would kill a normal man; Jack was just unconscious and probably paralyzed. Except, the Doctor noticed analytically, some stimulant in the poison had made Jack's sex stand up hard against the vinyl cot in the Tardis medical bay.

The Doctor leaned back on the table across from Jack, smothering a snort. Only Jack, he thought, could be tranquilized and paralyzed, and still having wet dreams. It was tempting to just reach out and wipe off that drop glinting on the tip of his cock. 

Best not. A momentary, curious impulse, that was.

Suddenly self-conscious, though he was alone, the Doctor grabbed a blanket and covered his friend.

\-------

"Come on, Jack--the whole world doesn't need to see your arse." Ianto had grabbed a shirt and tossed it over Jack's backside where he lay in the sand. "Besides, it's bloody freezing!"

Ianto himself had pulled on clothes right when they'd finished their morning romp in the sand, and was leaning on a boulder, watching the sea sway. 

"You loved it earlier." Jack snorted into the blanket beneath him. "Besides, rural shoreline in Wales, hello? No one cares. They don't." He nodded off to couple in the distance, a man with a woman who was swinging an umbrella even though the drizzle hadn't quite started in earnest yet. 

"Stay that way then," Ianto muttered. He clearly cared, but he was too proud to say it. "Jack Harkness, the human ice cube,” he said instead, shaking himself as if shivering from cold. "Brrr."

Jack tried to swat at him. Ianto was purposely sitting away from him, sulking. It was adorable, and gave Jack a great excuse to cuddle up and reassure him. 

Only he couldn't seem to get up. "Sleepy now," he muttered, and Ianto kept watching the sea with his salty eyes. The cut of his suit was outlined against the dark rocks as if he was part of the shoreline. Jack drifted off. 

\-------

It was the sensation of an octopus' suckers against his back that woke him again. He tried to call out to Ianto, but his voice was muffled. It was no longer cold; the drizzle had ceased and there were no streaks of light or birds in front of his eyes. The sand beneath him was firm, more like plastic. 

"Where am I?" he muttered, but the noise just came out like a moan.

The sucking stopped and he felt a hand on his ass–-well, that figured. 

"Welcome back, Captain," said a man, not Ianto. Jack tried to blink his eyes open and the room swam into view. There was a table with silver medical instruments, and he was indoors in a lab. Probably not earth–too streamlined, too calm, too advanced. He tried to turn around but still couldn't move. 

His voice came out garbled again as he tried to speak, so he stopped. Should he panic? Was he drugged?

The hand ran down his calves to his feet. He couldn’t move but he could still feel, at least. The palms were warm, cupping his arches. There were long fingers, and they were gentle, as if this man knew him. 

"See if you can move your toes." Jack recognized the voice and couldn’t place it. 

Where was Ianto's apartment? Where was the ocean? His toes twitched slightly when he tried.

"Good," the voice said, brushing up his thighs. Footfalls again, softly. There were pinstripes in front of his eyes now and a brown button, and it was the Doctor's hand against Jack's. He’d know that faint scent anywhere, like time travel and the unique mechanics of the Tardis. 

Relieved, Jack let his mind swim instead of trying to move. The fingers curled around Jack's palm. He wanted to ask why he was naked with the Doctor but was afraid he'd just sound slurred again. 

The Doctor’s voice was quiet and calm. "Squeeze my fingers, can you?"

Jack tried, but his hands just trembled. “Doc.”

"All right. Give yourself time. You remember what happened, don't you? Can you blink?”

Jack blinked. 

“Good. Listen. You’ll be fine in just a snap. Blimey, your eyes are red--like the bird? Blink if you remember the bird. Well, he wasn’t a bird, not really."

The button in front of Jack’s eyes was sinking down beneath his field of vision, and then the Doctor's long nose poked forth beside Jack's face. His jaw looked unshaven and his eyes were dark and wide. Jack thought he'd never gazed in these eyes quite so close before and oh, how he had once wanted to. But now-–where the hell was Ianto?

Jack closed his eyes and tried to think. A red bird, the Doctor had said. The Doctor was quiet, and asking him questions. He wasn’t talking a mile a minute. All that added up to something wrong, and it wasn’t just Jack’s unique biology.

"You don't?" The Doctor sounded disappointed. More shuffling of his feet and he was behind Jack again, his hands planted on the base of his back. Jack heard a sigh and then felt the suction again on his spine. 

That was no octopus. It wasn't a medical device. Jack could feel the Doctor's mouth pressed against him, and the suction bringing heat to his skin. There was that long tongue, erotic against Jack's back. He snapped his eyes open and uttered another incoherent noise that didn’t sound anything like, “Doctor!”

The suction stopped, and the Doctor's fingers stroked across him. "Does that hurt?"

"Nuh."

“Captain, this is strictly therapeutic," the Doctor said, patiently. "Should purge the toxins and get your blood moving. All right?” 

"Uh." 

Before Jack could muddle out a response, the Doctor was mouthing his back again. He slowly worked his way up along the long muscles. His fingers were cool and his mouth was hot and wet. Jack could barely feel his toes, but his cock was twitching on the vinyl medical cot. The Doctor’s tongue lathed across his spine. 

Jack mumbled again into the pillow but only succeeded in moving his head slightly. The pillow was wet under his face. He'd been drooling. What type of fucked up dream was this, then, he wondered?

He shut his eyes and imagined himself back on that beach. Ianto beside him. Ianto with his pale Welsh skin, his long cheeks and squinted eyes, his shorn, soft hair. 

Jack had been startled by the sudden fright on Ianto’s face and the punctuated disbelief in his voice. "What in hell is that?"

Jack had twisted around, sitting up. The sky was ripping open with a scarlet flush, and some alien dragon tore down on them with a forked tongue and body speckled like a sycamore trunk. 

The Doctor's voice called from above them, disembodied, until Jack looked up to see him standing on the cliff side. His hair whipped with the wind, and he squinted into the glare of the pale beach. "Might have known I'd find you here, Captain!"

"Doctor! The bird's yours then?" Jack peered up at the sky where the creature was tearing about. It flew along the shore and then whirled, soaring back toward them where the water met the beach. It cawed the whole while, shrieking at the sand. 

The woman with the red umbrella was screaming and running around in useless circles, and her boyfriend grabbed a long limb of driftwood off the ground to fend off the bird. 

"Don't! Just run!" The Doctor was calling out to them, skittering down the rocks to the shore and rushing toward them. Jack took off behind him, his feet slapping the sand. 

Ianto was right behind him. "Now do you wish you'd put on your trousers?" Ianto called. 

"Camouflage!" Jack called back. The sand under his feet was at least as pale as his sun-starved skin.

tbc.


	2. Chapter 2

Jack twitched again on the table as the Doctor worked his back. His legs were tingling now and the Doctor was speaking to him softly. “This is a treatment based in ancient Chinese medicine. Suction cups. Detoxification! Pulling all that poison right on out of you.”

And his mouth pulled on Jack’s lower back, licking circles around his muscles. If Jack could speak, he'd have quipped about the Doctor stimulating him. But then he realized that he was hard, and dripping with pre-come, and the Doctor had draped a blanket over his still-naked arse. He moaned again, trying to shift his body.

Fingers curled through the hair on Jack's neck. "Alright there?"

"Uh.” Thinking was hard. He was hard, and paralyzed, and worried about Ianto. But the Doctor said he’d be fine. So he’d be fine. All right. “Uh-huh."

"You remember what happened?"

There were snatches. Umbrella on the beach. Giant monster bird. Running. "Uh-huh."

"Brilliant! Don't try to move just yet.” 

But Jack couldn’t just lie here either, not when he couldn’t remember the last bit. It didn’t matter about that bird, but he hadn’t been alone on the beach. "Ianto," Jack tried to say but it sounded like, “Ya-oh.”

"Don't try to speak either. You got the bird home, but it lashed out. Nasty stinger. Acting on instinct, really. Not its fault. You’ll just need a bit of time to recover.”

So that’s what happened. Stung by a giant, lost dragon-bird. But the Doctor didn’t seem to remember Ianto and as pleasant as his fingers were, Jack couldn’t let it go. “Nuh,” he mumbled. If he just said the right syllable, the Doctor might realize… 

“See how you twitched there! I think it’s working. Time Lords can process this compound, much better than your system. Can’t leave it sitting on your skin or it will reabsorb. We'll have all your toes and fingers wiggling properly soon."

“Uh.” So that explained the sucking, and licking-–and was his cock twitching again there? 

The Doctor didn’t seem to mind about that. Who was Jack to argue? A long, warm tongue swirled around his back, and thin fingers massaged his flesh. Jack let his eyes flutter shut. The Doctor’s breath on his skin was like the wind on the beach.

\-------

“What are you doing! Don’t flap anything colorful at it.” The Doctor had grasped the woman’s shoulders, pulling her away from the bird. He’d snatched the umbrella from her hands. "In fact, just run! Both of you.” 

Whether it was the dragon-bird or the shouting pinstriped man that scared them, the boyfriend dropped his driftwood and backed away, and the woman followed him, sprinting across the beach. The bird flapped and swooped along the shore.

"He's a Berini bird, and he’s lost," the Doctor told Jack. "He hit a solar wind and got separated from his swarm and caught in the atmosphere. Just frightened, he is."

Jack shook his head. "Might have known trouble would follow us.” He winked at Ianto.

“So how do we get him home?” asked Ianto, who was always a quick thinker in a crisis. 

"I’m going to guide him,” the Doctor said. “Lead him in the right direction. Chart a path!" With a great grin, he extended the red circle of the umbrella and waved it about, luring the bird forward. “Here, bird-brain! Come to Doctor!”

“Don't you dare!” Jack lunged forward grabbed the umbrella from his hand. "Let me do that!"

"Oi, Captain! This isn’t your responsibility.” They tugged the umbrella between them, while the bird twisted his head and followed the red spot with interest. “Stop it!”

"I like those freckles of yours, Doctor–-you're too young to regenerate!” Jack finally pulled the umbrella handle from the Doctor’s hands, tripping backward. “Which way?"

Realizing he’d lost, the Doctor regained his balance and pointed toward the cliffs. “Lead him north and skyward. Once in space, he’ll find his way!"

"Straight on till morning!" called Jack, sprinting naked across the beach with a giant red umbrella flying behind him. The bird whirled around and swooped in pursuit. 

“That’s a sight, isn’t it?” Ianto said as Jack’s pale white bum sailed away.

The Doctor cleared his throat with an amused noise and turned to Ianto. "Sunbathing, were you?"

“Could say that, yeah.” Ianto looked out to the overcast sky. The flush in his cheeks said the rest. 

\-------

The Doctor thought about that flush as he worked at Jack's back. His fingers pressed into Jack's flesh, massaging the deep muscle tissue, moving the fluids through his bloodstream and bringing the toxins to the surface in a sheen of sweat.

A Time Lord's body could process those poisons, removing them more efficiently than a simple suction cup treatment. Jack smelled a little like the sea, salty and ancient, and it was like sucking on danger and adventure with that sickly-sweet poison coursing through him. 

The Doctor could feel the foreign molecular compound invading his own system now-- inflammation leaking through his fascia. His own fingers were getting stiff and slow, and his heartbeats were palpable and not quite in their regular rhythm. 

He paused with his nose buried between Jack's shoulder blades. His hand rested on the side of Jack's ribcage, and just now he could feel the heart resuming its normal thud-thud, pumping away inside the flimsy human body. As if Jack was like any other human.

But the Captain was strong and resilient. Far backward and forward in the Doctor’s time stream, he was a constant point among everyone who’d fallen. The Doctor reached out his tongue again, capturing a drop dripping off Jack’s shoulder and savoring it, like the minerals of stars. The building blocks of the universe. It was disturbing but incredibly compelling too. 

The Doctor wanted to lick Jack's spine, to feel the curve of each vertebra, all the way up to the taut skin of his neck where his hairline started. He could wind himself along Jack the same way he could spin the Tardis through the centuries. He pulled away, thinking he should really stop this. Before he couldn’t.

Jack spoke, still slurred, startling the Doctor from his reverie. “I remember it." 

"Gooood," the Doctor said, drawing out the vowel. 

"Ianto's alright?" Jack was moving his fingers on the cot, testing his body. 

"Ianto?” The Doctor echoed, and after a moment it clicked. Jack’s partner, with the flushed face and sharp suit. “Fine. He took off after that couple with the umbrella." 

"He'll be looking for me then." The concern in Jack’s voice was obvious, but there wasn’t much the Doctor could do for that now. Jack would recover soon enough to go home.

"No use to him like this, are you?" the Doctor said.

Jack shifted and turned around stiffly. "Trying to keep me all to yourself, Doctor?" 

"Don't mind if I do,” The Doctor teased right back, taking the bait before he realized it. 

"My knees are tingling." Jack stretched out his legs. "I'm at your mercy." He was calm, and it wasn’t flirtation, exactly. They were just two familiar, old friends. 

“Are you now?” The Doctor’s fingers tapped Jack’s rib cage. "You’re moving already--it’s not strictly necessary anymore." 

Their eyes met, and the Doctor saw blue eyes studying him, still dilated and drugged. Jack lifted a hand and let his palm drift along the Doctor’s cheek, the thumb grazing his lower lip. 

"Oh," the Doctor breathed on his fingers, “You--”

“Don’t stop?” Jack murmured, then dropped his hand and turned back around on his side again.

The Doctor pressed his forehead to Jack's shoulder and just breathed him for a moment. "Captain?" 

"Hmm."

Then he was kissing the long muscles, sinking his teeth in lightly and flicking his tongue along Jack's spine. His shoulders twitched. 

“Jack.” The Doctor breathed against his skin. 

The muscles had tensed and Jack’s pheremones were stronger than before. Otherwise, he didn't move. 

Slowly the Doctor massaged the top of Jack’s shoulder’s with stiff fingers, sucking the remaining part of his back to draw out the rest of the toxins. Burying his nose in Jack’s hair, he tried to calm his shuddering lungs. He snaked his arm around to cup the front of Jack’s shoulder. "Covered you with red bruises, I'm afraid.”

Jack took a long, deep breath and pressed back against him. “Hmm.”

“You should be fine now. Full recovery. You could run a marathon, if you like." He laughed softly. “Although, it might take you a while. And you’d need some clothing.”

“Doc,” Jack swallowed, shifting as if uncomfortable. 

The Doctor realized he’d been clutching Jack’s shoulders a bit tightly. He loosened his grip–-the man’s muscles must be sore, now. Truth was, he didn't want to stop. He wanted to turn him over, to find his lips and the tight purple nubs of his nipples and the curled hair beside his cock. But that, certainly, was in no way medically useful. 

The Doctor shut his eyes and felt Jack turn against him. He didn't expect the husky voice. "You think you can stop now?" 

Jack's pupils were dilated, the blue barely shining around them, and then they fluttered closed as his thick lips were drawing closer. Then the Doctor was face-full of Jack and all his saliva and breath. His tongue dove out like the bird on the shore. They struggled in a kiss until the Doctor needed to swallow. Jack was salty and briny and worth drowning in.

"This wasn’t planned.” For once, the Doctor found himself out of breath. “We keep falling into this.”

"You know I'm--" Jack gestured at the blanket over himself, ballooning out where he was hard underneath.

"A side effect." 

"Does it matter why?" Jack swept the blanket off himself and the Doctor let himself look this time. He reached down, his hand splayed across Jack's thigh, then looked up again at Jack’s waiting eyes. 

Jack's tilted his hips, pushing himself closer until the Doctor slid his hand up, up, to stroke him gently. He ran his hand over Jack’s stomach, then back down as Jack groaned into the motion. 

Finally the Doctor curled his fingers and Jack let his head dangle backward as he thrust his hips up again, off the cot. The Doctor held tight and watched the head of Jack's swollen cock rising in his fist, the juices of it oozing around the tip. 

Then Jack's hands were on his neck, pulling the Doctor down over him like a riptide, into another kiss.


	3. Chapter 3

Ianto watched the couple pile into their car and drive safely off. Then he ran back along the cliffs, but he couldn't find any sign of Jack or the pinstriped Doctor who'd spirited him away. He checked in the SUV’s system, but something was interfering with the signal off Jack’s wrist strap. 

He patrolled for hours, as methodically as possible, but he couldn’t control the panic in his throat. He watched the waves lap at the shore and gulls swoop with mussels in their beaks. The tide got bored and drifted away, exposing white crabs and broken shells in the sand. Freighters slunk along the horizon, and now and then a car ambled by on the road, but those were the only signs of human life. 

Jack was more than a match for that dragon-bird. The Doctor, on the other hand, was clearly out of anyone's control. If Ianto had to hazard a guess, Torchwood’s anachronistic Captain had just abandoned them again for a certain blue box. 

Exhausted, Ianto finally sat down on a rock and looked back out toward the ocean. This morning, they’d set out on a day’s vacation, driving along the coast, making love on the beach, and dozing. Then the Doctor swooped in, and Jack ran off. Typical. Nowhere was safe. With Jack around, nothing ended well.

The tide started to come in, and Ianto was still alone with the long-legged shorebirds pecking at the foam. He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. There was a wind whispering mockery in his ears: Jack had never needed him. The Captain answered to no one but the Doctor. Torchwood had always fought a petty war. In the scheme of the universe—the Doctor’s universe—it was like sand fighting off the tide. The ocean sprayed his legs carelessly, saying forget it, forget him, just drift—the cold, the wind, the sand, it’s yours. The tension in his shoulders faded, and still he waited.

The sky darkened without the benefit of a proper sunset, and Ianto pulled himself off the rock. He gathered Jack’s clothing and the blanket, their lube and bag of condoms, and threw it all in the SUV. Sitting in the cabin, he let the engine idle and waited for the heat to wash over him, and for his hands to stop tingling with cold.

\------

Jack’s body was slow in processing the physical input. One moment the Doctor’s mouth was on his own and the next there were teeth tugging his nipples and the sensation was shooting straight up his neck and down to jolt his cock in a shivering rhythm.

Almost in the same moment, the Doctor’s mouth surrounded him, his lithe tongue working around Jack’s shaft. Jack felt his body arch off the cot like an electric shock. His nerves were on fire and he had barely any physical control. 

The Doctor was a wraith, touching him everywhere at once. He looked terrified and ravenous and was climbing on the cot, balancing precariously around Jack’s body. How had the Time Lord managed to get completely naked in the last twenty seconds? There was a pink, hard cock lifted toward him, the head extended and slick through the foreskin. Jack must have been too slow in reaching out, because the Doctor took his hand and guided him there. 

Jack watched the Doctor throw his head back and stroke himself with Jack’s own cupped fist. His eyes were darker than normal, his cheeks were dark red, and there were rings around his eyes. His skin was too hot, for a Time Lord, but Jack couldn’t have pushed him off even if he wanted to.

“I don’t think that detox helped you out any,” Jack said, his voice still slurred and slow.

“Tell you a secret,” muttered the Doctor, “I liked it.” 

“No apologies,” Jack said, as his hand grew slick and wet on the Doctor.

“Right.” The Doctor leaned down against Jack’s face, sweating and serious. “Will you take me?”

Jack grunted, lifted himself up to press their erections together, and felt the Doctor grind against him. “Fuck yes.”

Even half paralyzed, the contact felt blissful. Those long fingers were lathering his cock and his crack with something tingly and cool and foaming, and Jack pushed against it. His body was finally responding again, finally moving. 

Fingers, and tongue, and then the Doctor was sliding his ripe cock inside. The movement was slow and measured, and the Doctor’s lower lip was trembling. His eyes were wide and watching Jack’s face, hovering like a trick of the lights. Jack wanted to reassure the Doctor that he wasn’t fragile, but then it didn’t seem necessary. 

He hit home, pulled out, and filled Jack again. It was a different kind of paralysis that left Jack shuddering on the cot, his back sticking to the vinyl, and his legs extended. The Doctor’s hands gripped his ankles in the air, pinning him in place. The Doctor’s eyes were shut, his mouth an O and his body writhing circles like the tide pulsing in Jack’s burning backside. Now they were both equally incoherent and still trying to speak.

It was raw and it was pain and he was alive and feeling again and never wanted it to stop. Jack could feel his heart pumping, echoed by his cock thumping his stomach. He managed to move his elbow and fingers enough to grip himself—his cock hard as a metal bullet but strangely numb. But he was hot inside and sore, burning with the friction like gunpowder blasting through him. 

Normally, he thought from a distance, he’d be coming already, but now it seemed he couldn’t. Just as well. He’d wait. He repeated, “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,” like a mantra and watched the Doctor’s face twist.

The Doctor jerked out suddenly, and ribbons of heat hit Jack’s stomach. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” the Doctor’s face was buried in Jack’s neck, and whether he regretted coming too soon or his lapse in decorum altogether, it didn’t matter. 

Jack tried to raise his arms around the Doctor, but the sweaty, skinny body slipped down, down, down. His hot mouth was working again, this time on Jack’s stomach, sucking up his own semen and leaving wet marks to cool in the air. 

Cool fingers cupped his hot sack, sending Jack’s hips jumping off the vinyl again. His cock was propelled into the Doctor’s waiting mouth. It was all moving in a flash, and his nerves jolted. 

The firm tongue flicked at the pressure point at the head of his cock, and those long, stiff fingers were lubed and sinking into him, and Jack tilted his hips to meet them. The heat flared everywhere in his belly and his cock at once.

Once more he was moaning, his words coming out as useless vowels, “Uh huh, uh huh, uh huh.” His cock jerked and wet the Doctor’s mouth, and still the Doctor suckled him gently until Jack’s body fell back on the cot. 

Jack watched the lights on the ceiling pulse. He wondered for the first time if there was anyone else on the Tardis—possibly a companion somewhere, asleep. The Doctor lay soft kisses on Jack's belly, and he tugged at the Doctor’s hair. The sweaty Doctor was crawling all over him, his mouth on Jack’s neck; his arms tucking under Jack’s shoulders; those gangly limbs pinned him on the cot again. 

Jack spread a palm across the Doctor’s back as their skin clung together, and they tried to catch their breath. 

The Doctor snorted against him. “Only you, Jack Harkness.” 

“Been waiting for you to come back.” 

“Come with me then.” 

“Someday,” Jack said. 

“Well, that’s something.” The Doctor was laughing against Jack’s chest. 

\--------

Ianto watched the waves push in and out, glistening under the solitary streetlight. Slowly the heat poured in the SUV’s cabin, and the numbness in his limbs gave way to a deep ache. Now he could move his fingers, but he couldn’t decide whether to call Torchwood for a search mission or just go home and hope Jack showed up to work on Monday. 

His hand was dropping the parking break, when a sudden grinding noise echoed around the SUV. Ianto cursed and let himself out of the SUV. He scanned the sky, expecting to see the red bird return, possibly with an immortal Captain or insane Doctor in its beak. 

Instead, there was the police box, sitting at the edge of the car park in a dark shadow. Minutes passed. Ianto paced around the SUV. Stuffing hands in his pockets, he braced himself against the wind that was ruffling the grasses at the side of the road. 

Finally there was a click and Jack’s voice cutting through the cold Welsh evening. Relief flooded Ianto’s body as Jack stumbled out of the police box first. He was wearing jeans and a tee-shirt that fit him too well to be borrowed.

Jack’s stride was less confident than normal. It was almost a limp, but Ianto couldn’t say which side he was favouring. He tried to keep his face blank, watching Jack walk toward him. 

Jack finally made it all the way across the parking lot to the SUV and braced himself against its frame. “Hey.” 

"How long's it been?"

Jack took in the weight of Ianto’s voice and his chapped, worried lips, and filled the last yard between them. He drew his lover into his arms and pressed a kiss to his mouth, relaxing into Ianto’s warmth. "I didn’t go anywhere." 

The Doctor stopped following Jack when he saw the men immerse themselves in each other. He turned on his heel, heading back to the Tardis. His work here was done. Time for the next adventure. He was grateful Jack had someone to go home to, now—the Captain might need some care in the next couple days.

Jack's voice stopped him in his tracks. "Doctor!" He reached out toward the Tardis, beckoning. 

The Doctor turned around and saw Jack beckoning toward him. He bounced on his feet, and reluctantly shuffled toward the pair of humans again. He nodded to Jack’s partner. 

Ianto looked at him, hiding behind a polite nod. “Hello.”

“You saved my life,” Jack said, reaching to take the Doctor’s hand. “At least come with us for dinner.”

“Nah.” The Doctor squinted out toward the ocean. “You did me a favor and sent a lost beastie home. Thanks. By the way.” 

“You should,” Ianto cleared his throat. “Come with us. Fish and chips just up the road.” 

The Doctor appraised Jack’s partner. Ianto's smile was tight and hurt but he was trying to be generous. He knew Jack’s weakness, and had made room for those foibles in his life. Oh, the Doctor could already tell how good they were together, and for each other. 

“Right.” The Doctor looked at Jack. “Let me, well, get my coat then. From the Tardis.” 

“Alright, Doc,” said Jack. His eyes looked disappointed, but the Doctor thought he saw understanding there. With a nod at Ianto, the Doctor swirled around. 

Jack sighed, watching the pinstripes fade into a black silhouette. He tugged at Ianto’s hand. "Come on. We're going home." 

Ianto’s face screwed up, confused. “The Doctor?”

“Is leaving us.” Jack looked back toward the Tardis.

At the door, the Doctor turned around, looked outward toward them and the ocean for a moment, and then the blue box swallowed him up. 

Jack turned his head and rested it on Ianto’s temple, breathing in his ear. His joints ached, but he could make it home, now. He squeezed Ianto’s shoulders, and Ianto wrapped an arm around him, sensing how he could barely stand on his own. 

Ianto kept his eyes on the Tardis door, but the blue box wheezed and started to disappear instead of spitting the Time Lord back out. 

Jack pulled away and attempted a smile. “Thanks for waiting. I wasn’t looking forward to hitching a ride.” 

“All right, but I’m driving,” Ianto told him, turning to open the driver’s seat door. “You look rough.”

“You’ve looked better yourself. Thanks.” 

Minutes later, as they wove down the highway, Jack was already snoring. Ianto turned the heat up full blast and cracked open the window, watching the navy-black sky. Jack’s breathing echoed in the waves crashing in and out. For the first time that day, Ianto let go and felt tears slide silently down his cheeks. 

Far off in the sky, the Doctor sat in the Tardis doorway, watching a swarm of Berini birds play with a tattered red umbrella.


End file.
